Vector-Based Product Characterization for Personalized Service

Resolve Bottlenecks,
Find Innovative Solutions
Generate Solutions

Solution Overview

Problem

Existing shopping paradigms face inefficiencies in presenting consumers with personalized purchasing options, as existing preference-based approaches are limited in scope and do not effectively account for a wide variety of product and service categories, leading to logistical and temporal challenges in ensuring the availability of suitable products at the time of consumer visit.

Innovation Solution

A vector-based characterization method that uses partiality vectors to correlate products with consumers, where each vector represents a person's belief in the value of a product, allowing for dynamic and endless variations in product attributes, reducing memory and computational requirements, and enabling efficient product selection based on vector dot product calculations or multi-dimensional surface analysis.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Ease of operation

If preference-based approaches are used to present personalized purchasing options, then consumer satisfaction is improved, but the scope and effectiveness of product recommendations are limited

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvepersonalized purchasing optionsVSAvoidscope of product recommendations
Core Design Contradiction:
Ease of operationVSAdaptability or versatility

Solution Approach 1:

The patent transforms product and consumer information into vector representations with multiple dimensions, allowing for dynamic and scalable product recommendations across diverse categories. This vector-based approach enables the system to handle endless variations in product attributes while maintaining personalized recommendations.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #35Parameter changes

Solution Approach 2:

The invention introduces vector spaces as an additional dimensional framework for representing products and consumers. By mapping products and consumer preferences into multi-dimensional vector spaces, the system can efficiently compare and recommend products across different categories using vector operations such as dot products.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #17Another dimension (Dimensionality change)

2Productivity

If traditional shopping paradigms are used to ensure product availability, then logistical efficiency is maintained, but temporal inefficiencies and product availability issues occur

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvelogistical efficiencyVSAvoidtemporal inefficiencies
Core Design Contradiction:
ProductivityVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The system performs preliminary vector-based product matching and recommendations before consumers arrive at physical stores. By pre-identifying suitable products based on vector correlations between consumer profiles and product attributes, the system reduces in-store search time and ensures recommended products are available when consumers visit.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #10Preliminary action

3Measurement precision

If detailed product information is stored for accurate recommendations, then recommendation accuracy is improved, but memory and computational requirements increase

Engineering Contradiction:
Improverecommendation accuracyVSAvoidmemory requirements
Core Design Contradiction:
Measurement precisionVSQuantity of substance

Solution Approach 1:

The patent converts detailed product information into compressed vector representations that capture essential product attributes in a compact format. This transformation maintains recommendation accuracy by preserving the semantic relationships between products and consumer preferences while significantly reducing the storage requirements compared to storing complete product catalogs.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #35Parameter changes

Solution Approach 2:

The invention replaces traditional database querying and information retrieval mechanisms with vector-based mathematical operations. By using vector dot products and similarity calculations, the system achieves accurate product matching with reduced computational complexity and faster processing speeds.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #28Mechanics substitution (Replace mechanical system)

Data Source

PatentUS10366396B2Vector-based characterizations of products and individuals with respect to customer service agent assistance
Publication Date: 2019.07.30 WALMART APOLLO LLC
  • US10366396B2 patent drawing
  • US10366396B2 patent drawing
  • US10366396B2 patent drawing

AI summary

Systems, apparatuses, and methods are provided herein for providing customer service agent assistance. A system for providing customer service agent assistance comprises a customer profile database storing customer partiality vectors for a plurality of customers, the customer partiality vectors comprise customer value vectors, a communication device, and a control circuit. The control circuit being configured to: provide a customer service agent user interface on a user device associated with a customer service agent, associate a particular customer with the customer service agent, retrieving at least one customer value vector for the particular customer from the customer profile database, and cause, via the communication device, the at least one customer value vector of the particular customer to be displayed on the customer service agent user interface of the user device.